


Turn the Volume Down

by UnoriginalAtBest



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bullying, Comfort, Fear, Fear of fighting back, Harassment, Music, cowardice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnoriginalAtBest/pseuds/UnoriginalAtBest
Summary: Original work I wrote super quick that deals with some issues I have on the daily. It's not very good, nor is it meant to be. This is almost strictly a vent piece.





	Turn the Volume Down

My music starts off at a reasonable level recommended by my phone. The notification tells me that the second my headphones are plugged into the jack. It says that it does this to keep my ears safe from any damage caused by loud noises. I say the loud noises are what keeps me safe. I ignore the warning.

I crank the volume up without a second thought.

I can't do this for long, though. Only for a moment or two. Any longer and I'd be stepping onto my school bus, blasting my less than popular music taste into the ears of indignant high schoolers with sneers on their faces. None of them want to be here, especially me.

I crank the volume down back to my phone's recommended level. 

The music is loud enough that I can hear the sounds of yelling children, but I cannot listen to them. The noises travel through my ears and back out in muffled, unintelligible waves. Nothing is coherent, and that is okay. That's exactly what I was going for.

I hear everything, but I am only able to listen to my music, my blissful, sweet music. It drowns out my understanding of everything else around me. I don't understand why one child in Seat D is yelling at someone in Seat C. I don't understand why another is yanking his buddy around like he's some sort of rag doll. I don't understand why the high schoolers in the back are all staring at me like they're hungry lions that just spotted some easy prey . . . but that's a lie because I do understand, I just don't know what went wrong _this time_.

My music, on instinct, goes down another notch. 'Just in case someone can hear it,' I tell myself.

In a frantic effort to ignore the judgmental gazes of six or seven young boys who are all taller than me by a longshot, I shift my head down the first chance I get. I only look up for a brief moment to see if there are any free seats, and in a stroke of luck, there is one. It's two seats in front of _him_. Two seats in front of blatant harassment. Good enough.

In my world, two bus seats away from _him_ is like being two miles away from a tornado ravaging a town. I feel safe, if only slightly, for the time being, but I know that at any moment a piece of anything in the general vicinity can fly off and hurl itself in my direction. Sometimes that's exactly what happens.

When the paper ball and the strings of insults and shame fly by me as we pull up to the school I suck in a deep breath and pretend it doesn't exist. I feign ignorance because if I can't fight back then I refuse to give him the satisfaction. Through the muffled sounds my headphones create I hear him and his buddies laugh. They know that I know, but I won't show it. I keep on as if I hadn't seen or felt anything. Maybe they'll believe me, and maybe they'll get so bored from my unresponsiveness that they'll stop.

That never works, but I have a habit of lying to myself. The volume of my music goes down again.

The second I pick up my things and head to the front of the bus I feel instant relief. The sounds coming from my headphones no longer feel like the cause of a bad accident, but rather a comfort. I sigh, and as I step off of that metal prison the volume goes back up. A part of me wants to cry with joy, but another pushes it down in favor of sauntering away as if my day hadn't started off terribly.

That's how it always starts off. Every single day, without ceasing, without so much as a break, this is how it starts off. And every single day my volume gets lower-

and lower-

and lower.

Until I'm so scared of letting them hear the sounds that keep me safe that I stop listening to them completely.

I don't want them to know what my safe place sounds like.


End file.
